


Lionheart Coffee Co

by beheadaed, Reynier, secace



Series: Caffè Arturiano [1]
Category: Arthurian Literature - Fandom, Arthurian Mythology
Genre: Coffeeshop AU, Gen, Multi, ah christ i had to tag like 40 people jeezy creezy, also arthur isnt in it hes only offscreen, bc i think thats really funny, uhhh is there anything else to tag, we can edit it its fine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:14:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23273026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beheadaed/pseuds/beheadaed, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reynier/pseuds/Reynier, https://archiveofourown.org/users/secace/pseuds/secace
Summary: coffeeshop au; hijinks, poor workplace safety, organized and unorganized crime, not very much actual creation or consumption of coffee
Relationships: Bedivere/Kay (Arthurian), Gawain/Priamus (Arthurian), One-Sided Gawain/Lancelot du Lac
Series: Caffè Arturiano [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2017424
Comments: 38
Kudos: 46
Collections: Arthurian_Server_Squad





	1. Three Dollars of Whatever

**Author's Note:**

> so this was/is written in turns chapter by chapter! itll say every chapter who did which part but we stubbornly stuck to our own spellings so names WILL change halfway through were just cool like that
> 
> me, lou, secace, did the first chapter, other credits will be in chapter end notes

“Twenty shots of vanilla and six things of sweetener, fifteen shots of expresso.”

“I'm not making that. You might literally die, and your shift starts in ten minutes.”

”Ten shots of hazelnut and extra caramel, fuck you, Kay,” Gawain said, leaning against the counter, and refusing to put on an apron till the last possible minute, “also whipped cream.”

“I hope you do die,” Kay grumbled, beginning to make the horrible concoction despite his genuine safety concerns, “then we could hire someone who spends more time actually making coffee than flirting with customers and staff.”

“You’re just jealous of my adoring public,” Gawain claimed, accepting the drink without making any move to pay for it. Kay did have to admit there was a not-insignificant subset of their customers who came specifically for Gawain, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t a pain in the ass who only stayed employed because his uncle owned the place.

“Go clock in you fucking animal,” Kay rolled his eyes fondly, “And I’m taking this out of your paycheck, it was fifteen goddamn dollars!”

“Whatever!”

Gawain threw open the door to the back room at the same moment Bedivere left it, and they narrowly avoided running into each other. He rushed over to the counter, looking worriedly up from his phone. There was no one in there except a few familiar regulars- Isolde and Elaine- so Bedivere gave him a quick kiss before showing him an article on his phone.

“Has your brother seen this?”

Kay scanned the opening paragraph and swore.

“That’s less than three blocks away, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, fuck- can you cover me for ten minutes I need to talk to Arthur.”

Bedivere nodded and Kay ducked into the back room just in time for Gawain to leave, again almost colliding.

“I'm gonna put a fucking bell on you.”

“Kinky!” Gawain grinned, and tossed the, horrifyingly, now empty drink into the trash as he ducked behind the counter.

Bedivere quickly updated him on the situation between customers. 

“Fuck.”

“That’s what Kay said,” Bedivere sighed, still wrestling with the coffee grinder which existed in a permanent state of almost broken.

“Do you want me to-”

“No- shit-” there was a not promising grumbling sound from the machine and Bedivere winced, “you’re about to suggest something illegal and I don’t want to hear it. It’s just a chain moving in, I'm not letting you do arson.”

“But the Saxons! Bedivere they deserve it, you know they do.”

“Maybe so,” the machine reluctantly started up, and Bedivere allowed himself a brief moment of congratulations before returning to addressing Gawain's criminal leanings, “but your uncle is not gonna bail you out again, and I don’t want to deal with your brothers if you get arrested on my watch.”

“I wasn’t suggesting-”

But before he could finish, the bell on the door chimed and another regular walked in, Gawain practically shoving his friend out of the way to be the first one to the counter.

“Hi, Lancelot.”

He smiled sort of tentatively, “uh, hi. Coffee?”

Gawain made the same thing he did every time for Lancelot, which was hot chocolate in a coffee cup with his number written on it. A confusing ritual, considering they’d been friends since the Freshman year calculus class they both failed, but none of the other employees was willing to brave the terrifying and twisted warren that was Gawain’s love life to investigate the matter. 

Besides, he worked at the combination tea and flower shop across the street, Fleurs de Liberthé, which stole their customers. This made Lancelot “the enemy,” at least in the eyes of Gawain’s brothers, who were ready to consider basically anyone the enemy for any reason.

Two of them walked in at that moment, and Lancelot retreated to his table in the corner, where he would sit and draw and think of things he could theoretically say but wouldn’t because Agravaine and Mordred would inevitably find some way to mock them.

The pair of them greeted their older brother and went to clock in, just as Kay went to leave. This time they really did collide and landed tangled on the floor, which was only prevented from becoming a full-scale fist fight by Gawain picking up both of his brothers by the backs of their shirts like furious kittens and tossing them unceremoniously into the back room.

“Something has to be done about that goddamn door,” Kay noted, reclaiming his domain in the kitchen area out of customer view but in hearing. In addition to being the de facto go-between from the employees to the owner, Arthur, Kay baked all the pastries they sold along with drinks, along with his unfortunate assistants Percival and Gareth, the youngest and best behaved of Gawain’s generally awful family.

Agravaine emerged from the backroom first, and they let him take the register. He was the quickest at math by far, and the calculator had been destroyed earlier that day in a hot milk dunking incident.

“Oat milk agave syrup latte,” a young man ordered, and Agravaine rolled his eyes, and wrote ’nerd’ on the cup before handing it off to Mordred, who had just slipped behind the counter as Bedivere left to finally clock out.

“One order for a fucking nerd!” Mordred called out gleefully after making the fastest drink of his life.

“Thank you, Mordred,” Galahad said, attempting to affect the patience of a saint as he accepted his drink.

“God, what the fuck happened to your hair?” 

In the rush to mock his brother’s friends' drink choices, Agravaine had missed the entrance of another regular. This particular regular had been away on a three-week study abroad program.

This particular regular was Agravaine's self-described mortal enemy.

“None of your fucking business. I lost a bet. Order or get the fuck out. Is it that bad? I mean, shut up,” Agravaine said, trying out several different strategies unsuccessfully.

“Give me 3 dollars worth of whatever,” Lamorak leaned over the counter, 

“seriously, who talked you into that?”

“Five dollars of anything you want,” Agravaine said, passing a cup back to Mordred. 

“And I lost a bet with Dinadan, shut up,” he frowned, less sure of himself then he'd like to pretend, “it’s not that bad, it’ll grow out, right?”

Lamorak shrugged, “I mean it is certainly… pink.”

“Here ya are!” Mordred slid the drink across the counter looking pleased with himself. He had managed to mix some monstrosity that was the exact same colour as his brother’s hair.

“Final question,” Lamorak said, grabbing the cup and slapping a five-dollar bill onto the counter, “Was it a thorough job? Does it match do-”

Gawain and Mordred grabbed their brother before he could lunge over the counter to try and kill Lamorak, who left the coffee shop quickly, still laughing.

“Calm down Aggs,” Gawain urged, “we need all the customers we can get at the moment, even the assholes.”

He filled his brothers in on the Saxon situation, and they had pretty much the same suggestions he'd had, which he reluctantly put down. In the lulls between customers over the next hour, they discussed the problem amongst themselves.

“What about Fleurs de Liberthé? The Saxons do tea, so they’re a risk to them too.”

“What about them?” asked Gaheris, who had, as usual, arrived late.

“Well, we compete with them right now, but what if we could sort of work together? What we need is to make a political alliance. We could seal it with a marriage, hey, Lancelot-”

Agravaine kicked his brother in the shins to stop that train of thought, and called out “Nevermind, he meant a different Lancelot!”

Confused, Lancelot went back to his sketchbook and hot chocolate, wishing Gawain didn’t have to share most of his shifts with his brothers.

Gawain stuck his tongue out at Agravaine and went back to arranging the paper cups into a tower. If the first half of his International Relations slash Gender Studies dual major didn’t let him apply coffeeshop politics to date cute French expats, what was even the point of it?

But Mordred was nodding thoughtfully.

“It was a good idea, though,” He admitted, looking over the stock of pastries they had left.

“We need more of those little butter cookies. I’ll go talk to Gareth in the back and tell Kay your thing. Minus the marriage.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Gawain brushed him off, no longer enthusiastic about this idea.

Mordred left for the back, where the beeping of timers and clanging of trays leaked constantly through to the front over Kay berating Gareth and Percival. 

Then, the door chimed again, and they looked up to a familiar and unwelcome sight.

“Shit,” Gawain muttered, as, flanked on both sides by nameless, armed suits, Lucius walked in.


	2. Labours of Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uwu rey, full name rey "gawain-in-green" iconandlegend wrote this chapter uwu

Lucius was not a mobster. This was made abundantly clear every time someone insinuated that he might be, because they quickly retracted their statement and never mentioned it again. There was no conceivable way he could be a mobster. Everyone agreed. 

“Where,” he said, slowly crossing his arms and tapping one toe on the floor, “is the fucking money?”

“We don’t get money for fucking,” said Gawain brightly. “It’s a labour of love.”

Lucius, to whatever credit he possessed, did not acknowledge this. 

“We paid our rent,” Kay said, sotto voce. He did not want the clientele to observe this. “How about we fix you a coffee on the house and then go into a back room to discuss this?”

“Where is Arthur Pendragon?” said Lucius, completely ignoring Kay. 

“He’s out.”

“And who is his next of kin?”

“What the f--” began Aggravaine, before Gaheris kicked him in the shin. 

“You mean who is in charge of the shop?” Kay said. “I am. I’m his brother. Kay Pendragon.”

“I’m legally set to inherit if he dies, though,” Gawain put in. “He likes me more than Kay.”

“If you paid your rent,” Lucius said, the strain of dealing with multiple Orkneys beginning to show at the edges of his eyes, “then why does the January column in my financial notes have a big fat zero in it?”

A flicker of anxiety crossed Kay’s face. “We didn’t pay for January,” he said. “It’s only the 20th. We don’t have to pay until the 25th.”

Lucius smiled. “Isn’t that funny,” he intoned, walking forward until he was nose-to-nose with Kay, only the cash register separating them. “I seem to remember an itsy bitsy little note in the contract that says I can change the date of payment in the event of evident financial difficulties on your part. Do you remember this, Kay Pendragon?”

“We’re not having financial difficulties,” ground out Kay, holding his ground. 

“Then give me my rent by the end of today.” Lucius stepped back. “Priamus. You’re going to stay behind the register and make sure they don’t try anything funny.”

One of the suits, a tall man with a shock of black hair, nodded. “Yessir. Uh… funny like what, sir? It’s a coffee shop.”

Lucius glared at him. “I don’t trust anyone with the last name  _ Pendragon _ . See to it they stay in line. Right?”

“Uh… right, sir.”

“Have a good day!” Gareth put in desperately.

Ignoring him, Lucius spun on his heel and marched out of the cafe, pausing only to grab the oat milk latte out of Galahad’s hand and down it in one fell swoop. Then he and his goons were gone. 

The clientele, which had been more or less unengaged up until that point, had gone quiet. “What a mean person,” said Galahad finally. “May I have another latte?”

“I’ll get you one,” Gareth said. “I’m sorry about that.”

“Fuck him!” said Gawain, jumping up and sitting on the counter right in front of Kay. “That man is a fucking asshole. Can I kill him?”

“No,” said Kay. 

“Can I set his apartment on fire?”

“No,” said Kay. 

“Can I beat him up a little? Just a little?”

“No,” said Kay. 

“Pleeeeeease?”

“Hey, uh,” said the goon apparently named Priamus, “I’m still here.”

Aggravaine scowled. “Well, we hate you,” he said. “You’re not included in this conversation.”

There was a quiet cough from the customer side of the register, and they all turned. It was Lancelot. “Hey,” he said. “I know we’re, like, rivals, but-- can I help with anything? If you guys are in trouble I’ll do whatever I can.”

“You’re a French bastard,” said Gaheris plainly. “And you drink hot chocolate.”

“Hey! He might be a French bastard but he’s our French bastard!” Gawain leant back from his seat on the counter and slung an arm around Lancelot’s shoulders. Lancelot, for his part, froze in a mixture of two key emotions:  _ Oh God Oh God I Love Him And His Hand Is On My Arm _ , and  _ Oh God Oh God I Don’t Trust Any Orkney This Near My Jugular.  _ The resultant expression looked a bit like a love-struck cow having bowel difficulties. 

“I don’t trust the French,” said Mordred. “Galahad is French, and he’s a nerd.”

“I’m a national fencing champion,” called Galahad from the other side of the room. 

“Yeah!” shouted back Mordred. “And fencing is the nerdiest sport!”

“Do you do hits?” Gawain asked Lancelot. 

“Uh… like vodka?”

“No, like, do you kill people.”

“Oh my god, Gawain,” said Gareth, and it was not entirely clear whether he was trying to make a joke or not, “you can’t just ask him if he kills people.”

Kay slammed his hand down on the counter because the alternative was screaming. “No murder until I get off the clock!” he said. “We are going to solve this in a gentlemanly and polite way.”

“Why should we?” Mordred smirked. “Lucius isn’t gentlemanly or polite.”

“Uh, he is my boss,” said Priamus. 

Gawain half-heartedly flipped him the bird. “Yeah, well, fuck you.”

“Fuck  _ you _ !” said Priamus indignantly. 

“Sure, if it’ll replenish our fuck money suppl--”

“That’s it!” Kay grabbed Gawain by the collar of his ridiculous button-up shirt and hauled him off the counter. “Every Orkney out back right now! Me and Perceval are going to discuss this like adults.”

Gaheris snickered. “You and  _ Perceval _ ?”

“He’s better than you lot.”

“Thank you,” said Perceval, from his hiding spot under the counter. “That really means a lot.”

“What about me?” Priamus raised his hand. “I’m supposed to make sure you don’t try anything funny.”

“If anyone is going to do anything funny it’ll be the Orkneys,” Kay sighed. “Go out back with them. Try to stop them from killing one another. Now, git. Lancelot-- I might need your help.”

“Anything I can do,” said Lancelot earnestly. He didn’t care about the fate of the  _ Lionheart Coffee Co. _ , but the reality that its disappearance would also result in the disappearance of his crush of the last three years was setting in. Kay was Gawain’s uncle, after all. Perhaps an arranged marriage would be on the table. 

“Gareth, I want you here too.”

“I’m an Orkney!” said Gareth. “I can be irresponsible and-- and destructive, and annoying!”

“You keep band-aids in your backpack in case someone gets a paper cut,” pointed out Mordred. 

“And packs of Kleenex,” put in Gaheris. 

“And pads,” added Aggravaine. 

“And emergency granola bars for me,” said Gawain. 

Kay nodded. “You’re a fake Orkney, and I say that as a compliment. The rest of you, get out.”

Grumbling, they obliged. Mordred timed his passage through the door perfectly so that it swung back and hit Priamus in the face. 

“Alright,” Kay said, and surveyed his emergency war council. It was a sorry sight. Perceval was curled in a ball under the counter; Gareth was sulking, and Lancelot had a dazed expression of bliss that made him look like a very happy shock victim. “So… here’s our problem. Arthur is out backpacking with Guin, and we are broke.”

“But you told Lucius--”

“I lied,” Kay said grimly. “We would have had enough to make rent in five more days, but barely. My credit history is nonexistent in this country, and the Orkneys have been arrested too many times to get loans. They technically have money but only if they go through their mother, and they refuse to do that on principle.”

“The Orkneys have been arrested?” Lancelot said, and his expression was not one that should have been associated with that phrase. “What for?”

“ _ I  _ haven’t been arrested,” said Gareth moodily. “But I guess I’m  _ not a proper Orkney _ .”

“You shouldn’t want to be a proper Orkney,” Perceval said. “They’re mean. You’re nice. I like you.”

“Aww, Perce, thanks.” Gareth leaned down and ruffled his hair like a dog.

“So our only option,” Kay continued, ignoring the way Lancelot was gazing dreamily into the distance, “is to ask for help from you guys.”

They all stared at Lancelot, who blinked, and came back to Earth from whatever happily crime-filled planet he had been sojourning on. “Huh?”

“We want you to give us money,” enunciated Kay. 

“Oh, uh, yeah, whatever.”

“Whatever?”

“Yeah, whatever helps Ga-- whatever helps you guys.”

“So you’ll talk to your boss over at  _ Fleurs de Liberthé _ ?”

“Yeah, yeah, totally.” 

“Alright.” Kay sighed with relief. “Thanks Lancelot, you’re a--”

They were interrupted by a strange noise from the back door, which sounded fleshier and more painful than anyone wanted. 

“Do it for the viiiiiiiiine!” came Mordred’s voice, faint but entirely understandable. 

“Vine’s dead, dumbass!” yelled a voice recognizable as Gaheris’. 

“Do it for the tiiiiiktoooook!”

There was another thud. 

Kay closed his eyes. “I’m going to stay here,” he said, “and pretend I can’t hear this.”

Curious, Gareth trotted over to the back door and peered through. “Gawain is fighting the mob guy.”

“No….” whined Kay. “Why did I do that? Why did I send them out there together?”

“Wait,” said Gareth. 

“I’m waiting.”

There was a pause. “Well,” Gareth said, “they’re not fighting anymore.”

“I’m just gonna leave,” said Lancelot quietly, and if he looked a little heartbroken, no one noticed. 


	3. Considering Murder

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeeeeet this is by eddie "beheaded" theincredible, huge shoutout to him on his first fic!!! <3  
> \--rey

“Well, I think I got us an inside agent,” said Gawain, barging into the room with a very disheveled Priamus.

“Yeah, but at what cost?” Agravaine pointed to a very traumatized Gareth. 

“Alright,” interrupted Kay in an attempt to prevent disaster, “while you were off doing... whatever it is that you were doing, I sent Lancelot to talk his boss at _Fleurs the Liberthé_ into helping us, but I think we should have at the very least a backup plan. So, any ideas? Raise your hand, please.”

Gawain raised his hand as quickly as he could.

“No, we will not consider murder,” said Bedivere preemptively. 

“But what about, and hear me out this time, theft?”

“As tempting as that is, we can’t have you getting arrested-- again,” Kay said. “Now, has anyone got ideas that don’t, and I repeat, _don’t_ include crime?”

“Well,” Bedivere said, “the most straightforward thing to do would be to try and get as many customers as possible, and maybe convince a few to make donations, but still that would never be enough money.”

“That’s true,” Kay agreed, “but it’s better than nothing. Still, we need a plan of action.”

“I could check up on Lancelot and see how it’s going with his boss. Also, he looked really sad. I should go see if he’s okay”, said Gareth from under the counter.

“That’s actually not a bad idea, but then again you’re not a real Orkney. Speaking of which, Agravaine, I’m going to need you to call Lamorak and find a way to convince him to make a generous donation. Judging by how much he tips, the guy is loaded.”

“Wait, why me?” Agravaine asked, face red from either anger or embarrassment. Probably both.

“Because you’re the only one who has his phone number.”

Mordred suddenly perked up, grinning mischievously. “You have his phone number? Oh, I see…”

“What do you see, huh?” snapped Agravaine, “He needed help with math and I'm not a heathen, so I tutored him a couple of times.”

“You tutored him? The guy you call your rival?” Mordred taunted.

“I don’t see where you’re going with this”, Agravaine said, as his face became redder and redder, “not to mention that we have more important things to worry about than Lamorak sucking at math.” 

“So,” Gaheris intervened. “Kay, I was thinking, have we considered a last minute social media campaign?” 

It was at this point that the door suddenly opened, and into the coffee shop entered Dinadan.

“Dinadan, the right man at the right time!” Kay greeted him.

“Well, hello to you too, how may I be of service?” Dinadan said jovially.

“Okay so, to cut it short, we need money for rent by tonight because Lucius is a dick, and we were thinking that some kind of social media shout-out from someone with a lot of followers might help bring more customers in,” explained Gaheris.

“And that's where I come in, I see. So you’re basically using me for my fame.”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“Alright, tell me what I need to do and I’m in!”

“Just an endorsement on your Instagram profile should be enough, but if you want to contribute more, we do have a small stage where you and Tristan could play.”

“Sure, I can just tell him Isolde will be here and he’ll come.”

“Great, I’m just gonna need Tristan’s Insta username, yours I know, and then it’s official.”

Dinadan tried to stifle his laughter as he said: “@sendfeetpics69.”

“God,” groaned Gaheris, “I can’t believe that there are people who like him.”

“To be fair, he can play the harp real good.”

“Yeah, the harp he named after the fucking Windows A.I. lady!”

“Okay, good point.”

As Gaheris and Dinadan called Tristan and started to prepare the stage, with very little help from Gawain and Priamus, who had other priorities, the rest of the dwellers of _Lionheart Coffee Co._ got to work: Bedivere left to talk to some people on campus and the others got back to working as usual, since they needed customers and someone had to serve them, and also since Galahad was requesting another vegan monstrosity. As Mordred resignedly made said monstrosity, Lamorak walked in and approached the counter, where Agravaine was pointedly staring at the cash register.

“Good morning, I’d like a black coffee with one shot of blueberry flavouring,” Lamorak said, with the usual taunting joviality in his voice.

“What the fuck. That would be 5£,” answered Agravaine, and turned to shout the order to Mordred, who looked at Lamorak and just scoffed.

“By the way, about that help you need, just tell me how much and I’ll give it to you, it’s no problem.” Lamorak’s voice softened.

“We really don’t want to burden you more than necessary, we’re trying to get most of the money ourselves, can you maybe drop by at the end of the day and we’ll see how we’re doing?”

“Sure, that works, but seriously, do not hesitate to tell me if you need anything else.”

“God, thank you so much, again, I hate to trouble you so much.”

“Aggs, seriously, there’s no need to worry, morey is not an issue for me”.

Mordred snickered at the nickname.

“I can't believe that you actually offered to help, like why the fuck would you do that, I’ve been nothing but a dick to you.”

“Well, maybe I enjoy your shitty ass coffee.” Lamorak grinned.

“Fuck you, I hate you so much”, Agravaine joked, for once.

“Yeah, about that, I never understood why?”

“You fucking called my mother sexy, that’s why,” Agravaine said through his teeth, managing to sound more jealous than anything else, his previous kindness substituted by the usual hostility. 

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Lamorak tried to defend himself, while stifling a grin.

“Oh, you forgot?”, Agravaine said accusingly, “Well, allow me to give you a reminder: you commented under my mother’s third post, and I quote, _@morgause.jpeg hey there sexy lady, wink emoji_.”

“Hey man, I was being honest.” His grin was now bordering on mocking.

“I hate you so much it’s unreal.”

“Stop bullying your benefactor,” shouted Dinadan from the stage, where he was having a fight with the microphone stand.

“Oh, fuck, sorry. Dinadan’s right, I should at least wait until tomorrow to begin the hostility again. By the way, I know it’s not much to repay you, but just know that you will never pay for your coffee again here, it’s the least we can do.”

“If you two are done with flirting, can I order?” intervened Galahad.

Both Lamorak and Agravaine blushed at the implication, while Morded said: “Not again? How many of these fucking abominations do you drink per day?”

“Just as many as I need to tolerate you people all day long,” deadpanned Galahad, approaching the counter while Lamorak left to go chat with Dinadan.

As the hours went on more and more customers started to come in, and Tristan arrived with his harp, bumping into every person that stood in his way and a few that didn’t. Everybody was busy, save for Gawain and Priamus, who were busy in other ways behind the counter, undisturbed, since Kay was too occupied to notice.

It was at this very moment that Gareth returned, followed by Lancelot and Viviane.


	4. The Walking, Talking FDA Violation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Plans: some legal, some not, all of them bad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sup y'all lou did this one and it really made my day give him comments please  
> \--rey

Vivian stood in the doorway for a long second, taking in the sight. It was not a pretty one. There were various harried-looking young people only half paying attention to customers, some desperately trying to maintain order and others causing disorder. Someone was playing modern opera which clashed with the tinny music over the speakers which clashed with the man tuning a harp in the corner. There were bloodstains on the counter. 

“That one?” she asked hesitantly, inclining her head towards Agravaine, who was trying to get the ancient coffee grinder to work while having some clear internal crisis. Lancelot shook his head, reluctantly.

“Probably would have mentioned the hair,” she said, more to herself than to him. Vivian liked to think well of everyone, and was having a bit of a hard time doing so at the moment. Gareth was no help in identifying his brother, having already rushed to the back so Percival wouldn't have to bear the brunt of Kay's baking ire alone.

“That one?” she said, about Gaheris, who was playing on his phone and sitting on the floor, having realized that Kay was too busy doing work, and Gawain too busy not doing work, for either to tell him off.

“No,” Lancelot said reluctantly, voice slightly strained.

She sighed, and put a hand to her temple, “is he the one currently covered in blood and making out with some guy on the counter?”

Lancelot reluctantly admitted that yes, that was him. But it was fine, he tried to convince her, because they had just met that guy today, and he was involved in organized crime, an assurance that for some reason did not go over well. 

“I-” she started, almost at a loss for words. That was when smoke began billowing from the coffee grinder. There were sparks coming off it.

Agravaine, for his part, just sort of stood there in shock for a long few seconds, seeming unaware of his colleagues swearing loudly at him. Water was dumped on the machine by some enterprising young idiot, which did nothing to help except to make it broken and wet. 

It was now making a high pitched wailing noise, and they were looking at each other in panic. The smoke was blacker and thicker now, and it began to rattle, whistling and shaking and sending out choking smoke in an ever-building crescendo as they stood around uselessly till-

It stopped moving and making noises abruptly, sparks laying still. The smoke began to clear, and Kay could be seen holding the now unplugged extension cord in one hand.

“Um,” Agravaine said. 

“I think I'm going to go,” Vivian said.

Lancelot didn't say anything. His mother turned around and walked out, and he hesitated for a moment, unsure whether to stay and lurk in the corner as usual or go home in defeat. He elected for the latter, and no one noticed him leave, Gareth having meant to check- honestly he had- but for some reason nothing was rising, and by the time they realized Percival had mixed up salted and unsalted butter Lancelot had been long forgotten. 

Back up front, fire prevented, they were now staring blankly at the machine.

“Bedivere is going to be so mad,” Kay said finally. Bedivere had spent most of the morning getting the poor thing back on its feet, after all.

“Upside,” Gawain said dryly, and nudged Priamus, “looks like you’re useful again.”

“Oh, good,” he said, with the voice of a man who was falling from a great height and had decided he might as well enjoy the view on the way down.

* * *

They had closed an hour early, and were currently strategizing in the backroom. The youngest four Orkneys were banished to clean up, but everyone else was congregated around the plastic folding table.

“Arthur isn't gonna be back for another week,” Kay started, frowning down at a cup of tea- with the sudden unavailability of coffee he'd had to switch to another source of caffeine, and he was less than enthused about it.

“I hate to say this,” said Bedivere, over Kays phone on speaker, “but maybe we uh… maybe we don’t tell Arthur about any of this? If we could take care of it ourselves….?”

They shifted uncomfortably, all privately hoping they wouldn’t have to tell Arthur, and more importantly his wife, but not wanting to be the first person to agree. 

“I don’t think we have to tell Arthur,” Agravaine agreed finally. That was his job- to say things that made him look bad but that everyone was thinking. If he was the family asshole, then there was only one in the family. Very noble, but for the fact that he’d been doing it long before he thought to do so consciously.

They all nodded quickly.

“We just have to take care of this before he gets back. We have almost a week,” said Gawain, who was sitting on Priamus’ lap, ostensibly due to lack of chairs.

“But we’re gonna have to use most of the five thousand to get a new machine. And until we do so, we do nothing but haemorrhage money,” Kay pointed out.

“Hey, Aggs, you think-”

“No,” Agravaine cut his brother off, his face already, or perhaps still, the same shade of pink as his hair, “Unlike you, I'm not going to sle-” he remembered Priamus was still there and abruptly stopped talking.

“I wasn’t saying you had to sleep with him! I was just saying some diplomacy-”

Kay cut that line of conversation off, “no, no diplomacy. In fact, stop doing diplomacy on the counter, it’s against MHRA regulations.”

“You did what on the counter??” Bedivere’s voice echoed in tinny horror through the phone speaker.

“Nevermind that,” Gawain brushed it off shamelessly, “We need to pay rent tonight, but we need the machine by tomorrow morning, and we don’t have money for both. So,” He turned to Priamus with a look of challenge.

“I, uh- I could cook the books for this month. But just this month alright? I can’t keep doing it forever,” he said, sounding a bit strained.

Kay sighed, mostly relief but a tad still annoyed at Gawain, “Thank you, we won’t ask it of you again.”

“You’re my hero,” Gawain noted, almost off-handedly, “so now the only issue is a new machine, as quickly as possible. Ordering one, even with rush shipping, would be multiple days. On the other hand, I know a place right down the road that has them for free-”

“No, nope!” both Kay and Bedivere broke in at once.

“Is that why you two are dating? You’re both fucking narcs?” Agravaine asked, privately relieved that someone had stopped things before they escalated to him hoisting his brother through the broken back window of a Saxon Coffee establishment.

“First off: boo, you whore. Second, I wasn’t suggesting we steal a coffee machine from the Saxons. I'm suggesting we buy one from them.”

Gawain explained his plan, which was shockingly well researched. Somehow between being a mediocre barista, fighting and then seducing a hired thug, and embarrassing his family, he had time to internet stalk the manager and find out every detail both of his life and the franchise. The manager’s name was Hengist, and Gawain knew everything about him. 

Agravaine had helped, but if Gawain wasn’t going to say anything then he wasn’t either.

“So, his daughter is going through this messy divorce with this guy Vortigern, who actually used to own this building, not relevant but it is a weird coincidence. Anyway, he’s just throwing money at the problem. Plus, there was just a huge problem with the pipes in his house that’s going to cost a shitload of money to fix. Basically, he’s in dire straits cash wise at the moment,” Gawain explained, “So, here’s the plan- and I didn’t come up with it, so don’t get horrified at me-”

“Uh oh,” Kay said in anticipation.

“Okay, so Agravaine forges a parking ticket for like 1000 dollars and we put it on Hengists car, he sees it and is freaking out and then I come in like, I’ll give you a thousand dollars under the table to switch our machines and pretend yours broke. You’re not even open yet, you have time to get a new one. He agrees, natch, and we have a new machine before opening for less than we got the old one for.”

Before anyone could say anything about that, Gawain turned to Priamus, “New plan, you no longer have to embezzle. Can you dress up as a cop?”

“Yeah, yes, I can do that,” he agreed enthusiastically.

Gawain paused for a moment. “For the plan? To give the ticket?”

“That too.”

Kay was looking off into space like he would be sharing a thoughtful look with Bedivere, were he here physically.

“Okay, yeah. This could work. But we are not telling Arthur.”

There was a chorus of agreement from around the table, and the meeting began to wrap up, all of them anxious to get home and sleep, or forge parking tickets, or do… Gawain activities. Speaking of, Kay stopped him and asked him to stay behind a minute once everyone cleared out.

“What? I have things to do Kay.”

Kay rolled his eyes, “I know. You make that very clear. I wanted to talk about that, actually.”

“Wait, you do?” Gawain sounded intrigued, and Kay was too tired to realize that a misunderstanding had been made.

“Yeah, it’s just that given your past behaviour-”

“Yes, yeah, for sure,” he agreed, before Kay could finish.

Kay stopped, “wait, what do you think you’re agreeing to?”

“A three-way. Is that not what you were suggesting?”

Narrowly avoiding spitting out a sip of tea, Kay sputtered, “NO! Why would you think that? Christ, Gawain, I was saying I'm concerned about tying our finances to the relationship of a man who has never been on a third date. It’s great that he can go behind his bosses back now, but I’ve known you for long enough to figure in a week you’ll get bored and dump him. You’re probably already considering it.”

“No, I'm not,” Gawain said, rising to leave. Kay dropped it, sensing Gawains infamous anger hinting at making an appearance, “fuck you and good night.”

He was gone by the time Kay had given the money to Priamus, and Kay had to hope he wasn’t angry enough to throw his plan away.

* * *

“Hey, shouldn’t you be locking up? You close in two minutes,” Gawain asked, leaning over the counter and flipping through the stack of business cards absently.

“Oh, God. We do?”

Lancelot looked at the clock. They were, in fact, closing. He had lost track of time between the crying and the post crying nap and then accidentally cutting a finger open on a rose. He hated roses.

“You want some help? I don’t know a lot about flowers but I can sweep and shit,” Gawain offered, at the sudden panic with which Lancelot began trying to clear the counter and find the checklist his mother had made for closing up.

“Uh, sure,” he agreed, any bad feelings he may have held after being, in his eyes, publically jilted earlier that afternoon disappearing in gratitude. 

Between the two of them, _Fleurs the Liberthé_ closed up only about ten minutes late, and Lancelot ditched the much-hated apron-- it had roses on it-- and rejoined Gawain at the counter, still not sure why he was here, but unwilling to ask for fear of making him leave.

“So,” Gawain started, almost uncomfortable, or as close as he got, “You can say no and I won’t be mad, but do you want to help me with something? It’s slightly illegal. It’s really illegal.”

Lancelot was already nodding and grabbing his jacket. “That’s fine, I’ll help. You don’t even need to tell me what we’re doing.”

Gawain laughed, and held the door open for him, letting it swing closed behind him. “I’ll tell you anyway. Basically, you know the new Saxon coffee? We need to do serious damage to the infrastructure of the manager’s house. It’s to steal an industrial coffee grinder. You still on board?”

“Lead the way.”


	5. Coffee Crimes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Reynardine (Today at 6:47 PM)**  
>  >quick question  
> >if i write the scene where lancelot and gawain break into saxons coffee  
> >and dont include a bit where someone comes in and they have to hide in a supply closet  
> >is that homophobia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> by rey (gawain-in-green)

“Here’s my philosophy,” said Gawain, balancing an industrial wrench on his knee as he crouched beside the back door of _Saxons Inc._ “If you want to do it, do it.”

Lancelot waited patiently for him to continue, which he didn’t do. “Oh. Is that it?”

“Yeah.” There was a creaking sound from the lock. “It’s a really avant-garde new living technique that I invented. I don’t know why no one else has cottoned on that there are actually no consequences for anything ever.”

With an impressive amount of diplomacy, Lancelot did not point out that the consequences were not nonexistent, they just rolled off Gawain like water off a duck and polluted the pond for everyone else. “I think that’s called hedonism,” he said. “It’s French.”

The door clicked open. “One would think,” said Gawain, nudging it open a crack and peering through, “that you’d be more of an expert in it, then. Unless you have hidden depths of hedonism heretofore unexposed.”

“Um, not really,” said Lancelot, somewhat caught up in the phrasing of that comment. “I’m pretty boring.”

The wrench held loosely in his hand, Gawain leant against the door frame for a moment and smiled at him. “You’re not boring,” he said, and Lancelot fell a little bit more in love. “Now, crime?”

All of a sudden he felt very dizzy. All the air seemed to have left him. “Crime,” he agreed. “Uh… what do we do?”

Rummaging in pocket, Gawain produced two very rumpled aprons. “Put this on,” he ordered, shoving one at Lancelot. “They’re not the right kind, but hopefully no one will look too closely. If we run into anyone, stand behind me and try not to be there, I’ll do the talking.”

“The talking?” said Lancelot, with perhaps a little more judgemental innuendo than was entirely polite. 

“Well, you know.” Suddenly Gawain was right in front of him, a leering grin on his face. “I can also not talk, if that helps the situation.”

“Uh, quick question. Is this a destruction mission or seduction mission?”

“You know the best thing about life?” Gawain tucked the wrench into his pants belt, and yanked the door open all the way, ushering Lancelot in. “It can be _both._ ”

“Alright,” said Lancelot, as he was hurried into an establishment which he was definitely not allowed to be in, “great. Great.”

The back door opened into a large supply closet, presumably for ease of unloading. Gawain sniffed. “It’s a lot bigger than ours, and they haven’t even opened yet.”

“Capitalism,” said Lancelot. “What can you do, I guess.”

“We could do arson,” said Gawain softly, gesturing around at the wooden shelving. 

“Um, what?”

“Nothing, let’s go commit vandalism.”

They left the small store room and emerged into a narrow hallway, perhaps a foot and a half across. “Hmph,” whispered Gawain, yanking Lancelot out of the way and shoving the door closed behind him. “This is definitely not up to code.” Then he grinned. 

It was a very tight hallway. They were very close together. Lancelot thought he might pass out, just a bit. All of a sudden he didn’t ever want to leave this very cramped hallway in a half-finished new Saxons establishment. “Uh, have you done this before?” he asked, in an inexplicable attempt to stall for time. “Snuck into places to destroy things, I mean.”

Gawain shrugged. “I’ve broken into places to destroy things. Mainly evidence, some priceless art pieces. Never done the corporate espionage part though. There’s a first for everything.”

“Well, I’m...” Lancelot stopped himself from saying something very rash indeed and instead trailed off into uncomfortable silence. “Uh, where do we go from here?”

“I don’t know, I’ve never been in a Saxons before, I’m not a traitor.” Gawain peered in both directions, a delicate manoeuvre which inexplicably involved bracing a hand on Lancelot’s shoulder as though he were in danger of falling over. Lancelot did not, however, object. “Uh… left?”

They went left. Or rather, Lancelot spent a moment trying to remember which direction was left, and Gawain took the opportunity to guide him forward by placing a hand on his lower back. The two of them had never spent any time alone together and Lancelot thus had no frame of reference on whether it meant something or if Gawain was just like this with anyone who showed any interest in him at all. The resultant confusion left him even more directionally challenged than he already was. 

At the end of the Corridor of Unclear Tension there was a half-refurbished open area which presumably would be the preparation room. Most of the appliances had already been imported, but the counters were unsanded and there was plastic sheeting on the floor. No one was there. 

“Coffee maker,” said Gawain, pointing. “Damn, it’s a nice one.”

“So do we just…” Lancelot mimed smashing something. “I mean, we didn’t bring a hammer, did we?”

“You don’t know what I carry on me,” said Gawain absentmindedly. “But no, it has to look like an innocent malfunction. They open in two days. No time to ship in a new one. Tragic. By the way, there’s dust on parts of the floor, we have to be careful not to leave footprints.”

Carefully, they tiptoed from clean area to clean area across the floor of the baristas’ area. When they reached the coffee maker Gawain inspected it curiously. “It’s a nice one,” he said. “Remind me to steal one of these sometime. Just for me, not for the _Coffee Co._ ”

As with everything Gawain said, it was impossible to tell whether or not he was joking. “Alright, so we… mess up the squeezer?”

Gawain squinted at him. “How do you think a coffee machine works?”

“I don’t know, it…” He floundered. “Squeezes the beans?”

“Interesting.”

“I don’t know, I don’t really like coffee--”

“No, no, it makes a lot of sense. Bean squeezing. That’s all you do in a coffee shop, I guess.”

The coffee maker mocked him with its gaze. “Well, I don’t know. What do we do?”

“Should be able to disengage the blades enough that they’ll cause some trouble.” Gawain pulled a pair of latex gloves from his pocket and slid them on. In the dusk half-light of the Saxons, with his hair all wild, he looked a bit like a mad scientist. “Alright, here we go…” he said, prying open the top of the machine. There was a clanking noise as he did something metallic to it, and then he pulled his hands back out. 

“No one will get hurt, right?” Lancelot checked. 

_Snap_ went the gloves. “Who cares? They’re not our people.”

“Uh, okay, but…” There was no conceivable way to engage this comment, so he decided it was probably fine. “Alright.”

Gawain dusted off his hands and gestured back to the corridor from which they had entered. “Time to bounce,” he said. 

The two of them skirted carefully around the piles of dust and occasional loose board, then filed back into the hallway. They had almost made it to the loading room when voices floated in from outside. A truck beeped. 

“Fuck,” said Lancelot, and then for good measure: “Fuck fuck fuck.”

“Don’t worry.” Gawain opened the door opposite the storage room at random and shoved Lancelot in front of him, yanked the door shut afterwards. “We live here now, I guess.”

Their new home appeared to be a maintenance closet barely big enough for the brooms it contained, and certainly not one Lancelot and one Gawain. That Lancelot did not entirely object to this was a fact that dangled itself in front of his eyes like a sparkler. Whatever Saxons business was going on outside drained away, and the world narrowed to him, the man he’d been increasingly worried he was in love with since freshman year, and some mops. 

“Good mops,” observed Gawain. “Very… stealable.”

“You say stuff like that all the time. Is it a joke?”

It was hard to see anything in the dark, but Gawain might have been smiling. “It can be anything you want, du Lac.”

He said it in a tone of voice Lancelot had never heard from him before: quiet, surprisingly sweet, and not at all the voice he usually used on recipients of whatever affection he so frequently gave to non-Lancelot people. In all the chaos, it reminded Lancelot of what he had originally been struck by about Gawain. He was one of the _nicest_ people Lancelot had ever met. Not to everyone, he had to admit, but Lancelot’s life-- while not terrible-- had been quite lacking in people willing to show him casual kindness. And there, sitting next to him in his freshman calculus class with eyes like trouble and a mouth like more, had been Gawain. It was a lot for a simple lake boy from Languedoc to deal with. 

“Are you alright?” said Gawain. 

The present reasserted itself. “Uh, yeah. Sorry. It’s a little stuffy in here.”

“Not used to hanging out in broom closets in the dark, I take it?”

In one of those awful moments of horrified self-observation that occur when the regret comes even before the mouth has opened, Lancelot said: “I can’t say it’s my favourite first date location.” Then, in the sudden silence after the mistake had been made, he cursed the day he had ever left Montpellier. 

“Ah, you and I are opposites, then,” Gawain said, seemingly unaware that his friend had temporarily exited the living realm and was promenading somewhere in the deepest stretches of Hell. “Broom closets are one of my favourite places to hang out. A lot can get done in a broom closet if you’re imaginative.”

“I’m not,” squeaked Lancelot. “I’m really not.”

Outside, there was more beeping. “I’m making you uncomfortable, aren’t I,” Gawain observed. “I’m sorry, I-- I didn’t mean to. I feel like an ass now. You don’t want to hear about my sex life.”

“I don’t really want to hear about anyone’s sex life, to be honest.” Lancelot breathed out. “Or at least not… extensively… in a broom closet. Maybe over pizza or something.” He gave a weak chuckle.

“We should get pizza sometime,” said Gawain. “Sorry for making you uncomfortable. I’ll note that.”

Outside, there was silence. 

“Should be safe now.” Gawain reached around Lancelot to crack the door open, then pushed it when no one appeared in the crack to yell at them. The air in the outside hallway seemed far colder than it had a right to be. 

“Should we just bolt for it?” asked Lancelot, once they made it to the storage room. 

The fires of Lucifer couldn’t compare to the look in Gawain’s eyes. He grabbed the door to the outside in one hand and Lancelot’s wrist in the other. “Race you to Lionheart,” he said, swung the door open, and launched into a sprint. 

There was no truck outside, but neither of them showed any inclination of slowing down. They tumbled after each other down the sidewalk towards the main university boulevard, cratering around corners and nearly tripping on cracked pavement, and somewhere along the way Lancelot began to laugh. He was out of breath, so it came out scratchy and probably slightly hysterical, but he was happier than he could remember being in quite a long time. Finally they barrelled to a halt outside _Lionheart Coffe Co._ , dizzy and winded. 

“We did it,” gasped Lancelot. “We did a crime.”

Gawain grinned, flopping against the wall of the shop. “Guess I can add corporate vandalism to the bucket list.”

Before he could think too much about it, Lancelot flung his arms around Gawain’s shoulders and gave him a hug. 

Gawain stiffened for a second, then relaxed into it. “Thanks,” he said, and neither of them was entirely certain what he was saying thank you for.

When they extricated themselves from the hug and joined the rest of the staff of _Lionheart Coffee Co._ , they found a huddle of people discussing Stage 2 of the Saxons Coffee Crime Plan. Stage 2 himself was standing in the center of the circle dressed as a uniformed police officer, his hands spread wide. He grinned at Lancelot and Gawain when they entered. “Success?” he said. 

_Priamus_ , thought Lancelot, and wilted like one of his roses. 


	6. Let’s Boogie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the heist goes down, as does, seemingly, everything else

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO firstly hewwo hail and well met this is Lou secace (that's my full legal name) and this chapter was written by all of us - me Rey gawain_in_green and Eddie beheaded- plus Jesse at IntoTheRiverStyx. if you can accurately identify who wrote which bits I will personally kiss you on the lips or write something for you dealers choice. but good fuckin luck buddy
> 
> also also rey made a playlist that is, according to her, LEGALLY required listening tot his chapter so 
> 
> https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5MfGWsrIyIhGQN1eWwv2Nh?si=VdnRShUwROWBh-HyDSZU2g
> 
> *points sword at you threateningly* listen to it
> 
> alright. godspeed

Morning rose bright and early, and Gawain rose with it. As a habit, he slept lightly and little, which accounted for a good deal of his general personality. He drew the curtains wide to let in every possible beam of sunlight, inciting protest from Priamus on the bed.

“Don't be a baby, come on, the sun’s up,” Gawain chided mildly, already half dressed in his most professional-looking button-up and a pair of jeans.

“Where…?”

Gawain gestured broadly to the entire bedroom across which the uniform was, in fact, scattered piecemeal.

“Next time try not to be so in character,” Gawain suggested critically, leaning against the doorway and notably not helping, as Priamus rose groggily and began attempting to find the various parts of the uniform.

“Was that not the point?”

“I didn't want you to quote traffic laws at me, I wanted you to-”

“Where's the belt?” Priamus interrupted, scanning the floor.

“Bed frame.”

With little thanks to Gawain's laconic assistance, he managed to get dressed, narrowly avoided being convinced to immediately undo his efforts, and the two of them arrived at the coffeeshop uniformed and nominally awake.

“So, uh..” Gawain almost faltered as he entered the shop to find the rest of the staff waiting expectantly. “Are we ready for this?”

“ _Now_ you ask.” Priamus rolled his eyes. “Of course I’m ready.”

“Bedivere will never have to fix the coffee machine again,” Perceval said. He had emerged from his normal sub-counter dwelling to hover nervously by the entrance. This was probably because of the presence of Kay and Bedivere, who were standing behind the counter with their arms crossed identically.

“Bedivere is already ready to fix the coffee grinder.” Bedivere was speaking in third person. “In case we’re somehow out another thousand dollars.”

“You backed this!” Gawain pointed out, before any attempts to forestall the day’s events could be broached.

“There are so many ways this could go wrong,” Kay said mournfully.

Gawain— far too perky for this hour of the day— manhandled Priamus towards the center of the room. “And so many ways it could go right! Besides, it’s not my plan.”

Kay frowned. “And whose plan is it?”

“Sorry to interrupt,” said Gareth, holding up his phone, “but Lancelot says he’ll be here in five? He was making oatmeal for us, apparently.”

“How long before we get his job application?” joked Bedivere.

“There won’t be a job to apply to if we don’t pull this off,” Kay said dryly. “Priamus, you have the ticket?”

Priamus rifled through his somewhat rumpled pocket and produced a piece of paper that had, miraculously, survived the previous night’s improvised stage drama mostly intact. “Here,” he said. “What’s our timeline?”

“Plant the ticket as soon as possible,” said Kay, who seemed to have decided that if this train was leaving the station he would at least be the conductor. “Mordred, you figured out which car was his?”

“Yup,” said Mordred, popping the P. He held up his phone to show a blurry picture. “This bad boy. He parks it over on East 6th Street.”

“Great. Take Priamus and do that right now. Gawain, can you drive them?”

“Uhh…” Gawain gestured at his face. “I’m not sure I should be anywhere near the scene of the crime, just in case Hengist shows up.”

“It’s okay,” said Gareth, in a tone of voice he probably thought was helpful, “you can take my scooter, Priamus. It’s in the back.”

“Your scooter?” repeated Priamus.

“Only Gawain has his driver’s license,” said Mordred, grabbing Priamus by his sleeve and pulling him behind the counter to the back door. “Come on, Mr. Gangster, let’s get the scooters.”

The scooters were exactly as glamorous as Priamus had expected; that was to say, not at all. There were four of them all chained up by a rusted padlock. Mordred jockeyed the lock open and grabbed the only one of the scooters that was painted entirely black for himself, then passed a lovingly-polished one to Priamus. “If you scratch it and make Gareth sad,” he said, smiling blandly, “I’ll hunt you down and kill you for sport. Got that?”

Priamus gulped. In that moment Mordred, with his badly-cut dark hair and purple lipstick, was infinitely more terrifying than Lucius or the actual police or even Gawain, whom he had only known for one day but had left something of an impression in many respects. “Got it.”

“Alright,” said Mordred, face still sitting in its wide, gap-toothed grin. “Let’s boogie.”

They boogied for about fifteen minutes, swerving through honking traffic and across cracked pavement. Priamus, who had been intending to take the opportunity to question Mordred on much of the information he felt he was missing out on, having only arrived in this situation a day previously, was horrified to discover that the man scootered like a demon. Whatever speed he lacked by virtue of not having a license to drive a car he made up for in bloody-minded scooting and a willingness to dodge in front of oncoming traffic. Even Priamus, whom it would have been safe to describe as an adrenaline junkie, found himself mildly frightened. When they finally arrived at their destination a block away from Hengist’s car, he was sweating and exhausted.

“Gimme,” said Mordred, gesturing for the scooter. He had a padlock in his hand and did not appear to be the slightest bit out of sorts. “Oh, you’re tired? Buck up, asshole.”

Bemused, Priamus handed the scooter over. “You know I’m committing crimes for you, right?” he said, more out of a vague fascination than any actual attempt to assert his dominance.

“You’re committing crimes for Gawain to put out,” said Mordred, unperturbed, “but nice try. Plus, aren’t you literally a hired gun?” “I’m not a hired gun,” said Priamus, as stuffily as he could manage without having caught all of his breath back. “I’m a private retainer in the financial securities enforcement industry.”

“Uh-huh,” said Mordred. He clicked the padlock closed and chucked the key back in his purse. “Yeah, that sounds _real_ legal.”

It was only 9 AM and he was already being sassed by a barista barely out of his teenage years. Priamus stared. “I have a degree in Moral Philosophy from the University of Bologna,” he said.

“Nice.” Mordred nodded his head down the block and started to amble forward towards the car. “I’m sure that’s real helpful when you’re intimidating small business owners into paying early rent. Or maybe you’re trying to teach my brother ethics like Pavlov’s Dog. Do you think if every time you two—”

“How come you don’t have your driver’s license?” said Priamus quickly, picking a random subject to forestall what he was certain would be an absolutely horrifying sentence.

“Uhh..” Mordred stopped so suddenly that Priamus almost crashed into him, then pointed at a red car parked by the parking meter. “This is the sucker,” he said. “There’s no one around, so just pop it on there.”

Doing a quick scan of the block and finding this to be true, Priamus pulled out the fake parking ticket and tucked it neatly under the windshield wiper. “Alright,” he said. “Now we do stakeout?”

“Now we do stakeout,” Mordred agreed. He didn’t look particularly happy about the prospect, but Priamus was used to people not being happy to see him. It came with his job.

“There’s a… frozen yogurt place across the street?” he suggested. “If each of us gets one frozen yogurt once every two hours we can stay there indefinitely.”

“What the fuck is wrong with you,” said Mordred, and immediately ploughed across the street towards the shop with no regard for safety. Priamus scrambled to catch up. “Anyway,” Mordred continued, without checking to see if he was within earshot, “I’m just lazy. I was like, Gawain knows how to drive, that’s good enough for me. I’ll just bully him into taking me places if I need. I can make Gawain do whatever I want ‘cause when I was a kid our mother was always a bit weird about the fact that I had a different dad, and he feels bad. Anyway, Aggravaine tried to get his license but he hit a bird the first time Gawain took him out to practice. He’s been traumatized ever since. There was blood all over the fender, it was epic.”

“That does sound pretty epic,” agreed Priamus.

They had reached the frozen yogurt shop. Because it was 9 AM and no one wanted to get frozen yogurt at 9 AM in January, it was empty. Mordred sighed and reluctantly pushed open the door. “How does this shit work?” he asked the sleepy-looking cashier.

“Uh…” She blinked at him. “Get one of the bowls and pick flavours, toppings are on the left, it’s priced by weight. Then you pay me. With money,” she added, looking dubiously at the odd combination of aesthetics. “We don’t have an officer’s discount.”

“Good,” said Mordred, and grabbed one of the cartons. “Fuck the police, am I right, Priamus?”

“As a police officer myself I’m obliged to say please do, but not you specifically,” said Priamus, who could never be faulted for not being in-character.

Mordred was loading up his caramel-raspberry monstrosity with chocolate chips. “He’s gonna pay,” he told the scandalized-looking cashier. “I love it when my brother dates jackasses with money. It’s like, free stuff, right? Babysitters are legally required to give you whatever you want.”

“Okay…” said the cashier. Her name was Tiffany. She had already been having a bad morning and now it was heading steadily for the worse.

“Then there’s Gaheris,” continued Mordred, scooping sourpatch kids onto his yogurt. “He’s an exceptional case. Every year he studies faithfully for his permit, every year he takes the test, every year he fails it three times in a row and gets banned from taking it for another year. I don’t know how he does it. It’s impressive, honestly.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah, that’s Gaheris for you.” Mordred slammed his bowl down on the scale and grinned at Tiffany the cashier. “What’s the buck for my bang?”

She blinked at him. “What?”

“How much money,” Mordred enunciated, “does my yogurt cost?”

The scale wavered. “That will be three dollars and fifty-seven cents,” she said. “Cash or card?”

“Priiiiiiiiiamuuuuuus,” wheedled Mordred, gazing over his shoulder in a passable pretense of puppy eyes. “Cash or card?”

“Cash,” sighed Priamus, pulling out his wallet. He was running low. Arrangements would have to be made. “You better enjoy this shit.”

“I don’t enjoy anything,” said Mordred, grabbing the cash. “I’m dead to all sensations except abject pain. Can I actually add a maraschino cherry onto this?”

Tiffany groaned. “I already entered your price.”

“Please?”

“Just give him the maraschino cherry,” said Priamus. “I’ll tip, I promise.”

“Add all the cherries you want, bro,” said Tiffany, who perked up a bit at that.

“Great. Thanks. You’re an icon. Then there’s Gareth.” He scooped a generous helping of cherries onto his teetering carton. “I actually have a theory that Gareth does have his driver’s license but he won’t tell us. I think he and Lynette own a minivan that they drive out to the middle of the desert with but he won’t let us come because we suck.”

“That’s weirdly specific,” said Priamus. He had searched his wallet thoroughly and come up with another couple of fivers, which he handed to Tiffany.

Mordred seemed to have finished his frozen yogurt villainy and accepted the receipt Tiffany handed to him with demurity. “I have no evidence for this save everything I know about them as people. Also, I found his receipts for gas once, and unlike me and Gawain he’s not a convicted arsonist, so a car was the only other option.”

“Gawain is a convicted arsonist?” said Priamus, in a tone which was neither appropriate for his current attire nor the location he was in.

“Yeah,” said Mordred, and his face cracked in a grin. “Do you think that’s… hot?”

There was a strangled squeaking sound from Tiffany.

“I’m not going to comment on my sex life with you,” said Priamus firmly. He was reaching new territory of public shame that he had not previously known he would be susceptible to.

“Damn,” said Mordred, “I wish you could teach them ethics to my brother. Did you know our apartment has very thin walls?”

“Can I get you to stop talking in any way possible?”

“Nope,” said Mordred, shovelling yogurt into his mouth while Tiffany and Priamus both looked on in horror. “Oh, hey, look, it’s ya boy.”

It was his boy. Hengist— or, at least, a man Priamus presumed to be Hengist, and on this matter he did trust Mordred— had emerged from a nondescript apartment several yards down and was ambling towards his car. “My time to shine,” said Priamus, rocketing out of his seat with an impressive velocity. He would have taken any avenue of egress at that moment. Sticking his thumbs in his belt, he swaggered across the crosswalk, affecting a lackadaisical nonchalance. When he reached Hengist he paused. “You the owner?” he said.

Hengist, all six and a half feet of him, glared. “Yes, and I have a permit to park here.” He waved a small card at Priamus wildly.

“You didn’t hear?” Priamus said, ignoring the proffered card. “They changed the regulations on all the streets within ten blocks of the university. It’s about streamlining traffic or something like that.” _Way to go_! he thought to himself. _I’m on fire!_

“That’s nonsense,” snapped Hengist, and then pulled himself back and ran a hand through his close-cropped greying hair. “I’m sorry, officer, I know it’s not your fault. Do I have a ground to stand on for an appeal?”

Priamus gave a low whistle. “Not much,” he said, “sorry. It’s been in the bulletins for a while. How much is it for?” “ _Two thousand_ ,” moaned Hengist, flicking the slip of paper at him. “That’s not fair!”

“This is a high-intensity neighbourhood,” said Priamus, putting as much emphasis as possible into words that meant absolutely nothing. “So the repercussions are high.”

Sighing, Hengist leaned back onto the side of his car. “Look,” he said. “You seem like a good man. A good officer. And two thousand seems like so much. Who’s it going to, anyway? The top brass?”

“Truly a crime,” he agreed.

“Look, between you and me, don’t you think one thousand might be a tad more reasonable? Paid where it can really help the man on the street?” Carefully, Hengist pulled a sheaf of pristine bills from his wallet and held them in one hand, half-tauntingly.

“You know,” said Priamus, smiling, “I think you’re a good and responsible citizen. I’ll see about getting that ticket cleared. And… thank you for the generous donation.”

They shook hands. They smiled. Priamus pocketed the cash, and then ambled slowly back the way he had come.

Mordred was still eating his frozen yogurt when he returned to the shop. “How’d the crime go?” he said, completely ignoring Tiffany’s expressions of concern.

“Went great,” said Priamus, patting his pocket. “We are now one grand richer. Congrats, kid.”

“If you call me kid again I’ll bite off your fingers,” said Mordred amiably.

“Cool,” said Priamus, who was beginning to realise that you couldn’t listen to anything Mordred said ever.

They began scootering ingloriously back to the coffeeshop, where matters of less heist related importance had been progressing.

Lancelot had arrived, as promised, with oatmeal. Gawain, who did not know that oatmeal could be made not out of a packet or eaten with anything but extreme reluctance, was suitably impressed, and said as much.

“That's really cool. That you can cook, I mean,” he said, politely ignoring Lancelot's sudden and delirious happiness which meant it was a good thirty seconds before he got himself together to respond.

“It's just oatmeal,” Lancelot replied finally, half modesty and half unconscious desire for Gawain to counter that it was, in fact, very impressive.

Obligingly, he did so, gesturing to the pot, “No, no its really good. I can barely make cup noodles without burning something, so this is pretty impressive.”

“I could show you how, sometime.” Lancelot said it like it was one word, before his brain could take over and bully him into silence.

“Name the time,” Gawain accepted, then grinned. “You are a man of many talents, Du Lac. Cooking, Larceny, Art, Flowers.”

The almost permanent half smile with which Gawain graced the coffee shop was, Lancelot thought, in rare form today. And truly, he would guess later, he was lost the moment he thought the sun had suddenly been revealed from behind parted clouds when a stranger in a calculus class had casually introduced himself.

“Oh,” Lancelot said softly. Then quickly collected himself, “Maybe not flowers.”

Gawain laughed and granted this.

The following internal celebration Lancelot was throwing to commemorate what seemed like an achievement of incredible importance was interrupted by Kay noting, not with any particular malice and perhaps even with grudging approval, that he had put in too much brown sugar.

But Lancelot had not the time even to press the down button on the elevator to transport himself into the deepest depths of despair when Gawain rolled his eyes and flipped Kay off.

“That means you did perfectly, and he's offended that anyone but him is allowed to know how to cook. Ignore him, he's a crotchety old man, we just keep him around to meet our government-mandated redhead quota,” Gawain explained conspiratorially, over Kay's sputtered protest that he was, in fact, barely older than Gawain was and how dare he—!

Agravaine was still too chagrined over breaking the machine to say anything but a grudging thanks, Mordred was gone, and Gawain was not only speaking to him but smiling, his dark eyes warm and his face open, so everything was going uncommonly well in Lancelot Town. Suddenly though, it all came crashing down with, for oddly enough the second time in as many days, the entrance of a uniformed Priamus.

“Success!” he announced, and barely had time to retrieve the money from his pocket and brandish it proudly before finding himself almost tackled to the ground.

Lancelot contemplated the Gawain-shaped empty space next to him for a moment.

“Ah,” he said aloud to no one.

Mordred, ignoring Gawain and the public display of diplomacy he was engaged in, entered and sat down to finish his yogurt.

“Thanks for feeding my brother,” Gawain said, breaking the kiss and pulling back to reveal he now had the cash in one hand and Priamus' wallet in the other. He peeled off a few bills from the first and deposited them into the second.

“When did you get-”

“I also have your handcuffs. You should pay more attention,” Gawain said, and gestured to the belt that now did not, infact, have handcuffs attached to it.

“Huh.” Priamus was now increasingly feeling he may be out of his depth, but also that, curiously, it was not necessarily a bad thing.

“Thank you Priamus,” Bedivere said, a tad dismissively, as he snatched the cash from Gawain and retreated back to the counter.

He was the only one to notice as Lancelot grabbed his oatmeal pot and shuffled numbly towards the wash room, the thrill of crime and the proximity to Gawain disappearing as it so often did under crushing reality.

Priamus recounted the events of stage two— stage three?— with intermittent unhelpful comments from Mordred, putting perhaps more effort into the drama of the telling than was strictly necessary.

“Okay, now just wait a few,” Bedivere told him once the tale was finished, “Long enough that he's slightly distracted and won’t question a quick source of income.”

“I can't believe I'm supporting this,” Kay broke in from the back, not making any moves to stop it in any way.

Gawain rolled his eyes, “You can stop pretending to be disapproving, Kay, you're not fooling anyone.”

“Where'd your friend go?” Priamus asked.

“Who?” Gawain tilted his head. “And where?”

“The tall one.”

“Oh, uh— he’s probably washing the pot. That’s nice of him. Anyway, I’ll drive over there in just a minute. In the meantime, how about you and I make use of—”

Kay snapped a finger in his face. “Gwalchmei. Cut it out. I won’t ask again.”

“Huh?” said Gawain, turning his head in surprise. “Gesundheit.”

“What?”

Gawain frowned. “What what?”

Shaking his head as though to clear water from his ears, Kay gestured at the two of them. “No dilly-dallying,” he ordered, “you can keep whatever this is out of the shop. Might as well park your car somewhere over by Saxons’ if it will otherwise occupy you.”

“Alright, alright,” said Gawain, breaking away from Priamus. “Uh… do I get reinforcements?”

Kay considered this. “I should probably come,” he sighed. “To add some veneer of respectability to this whole charade.”

“I salute your sacrifice,” said Mordred, who wasn’t saluting anything. He was licking the last of his yogurt monstrosity from the spoon. “Bye. Have fun storming the castle.”

They drove to Saxons’ Cafe in silence— habitually terse on Kay’s part, and on Gawain’s mildly uncomfortable. Whether this was a discomfort stemming from nerves, or mild reproach at being told off, or a needling sense that he had forgotten something odd, it was impossible to say. When they pulled up in front of Saxons’, there was a steady stream of vaguely managerial-looking people intermingling with workers. They stared in silence.

“Wait maybe five minutes,” said Kay eventually. “You don’t want to make it too easy for him, he’ll get suspicious.”

“Yeah, I know how to pull a con,” Gawain snapped.

Kay frowned. “Don’t take that tone with me. I haven’t done anything.”

More silence, interspersed with the shouts of the workers across the block. “Sorry,” mumbled Gawain, in a very small voice.

They waited for another few minutes, each staring in a direction that was nominally useful but was more importantly not at one another. “You should be good now,” said Kay. He turned his head and gave Gawain a small, hesitant pat on the shoulder. “Be careful, okay?”

“I can talk my way out of anything, I’ll be fine.”

“Not what I meant.” Kay waited as Gawain pushed the car door open. “I’ll head in if you’re not out in five.”

“Great,” said Gawain, who was still not entirely sure what conversation they were having. Then he was gone.

To Hengist, standing in the area of Saxons’ which would soon become the food-preparation counter, there was nothing particularly notable about the brown-haired young man who entered the shop just past 10:30. He could have been a local college student, or a standard Saxons’ customer. The only odd thing was that this particular location of Saxons’ Cafe was not yet open for business. “Hey,” he said, emerging from the counter region to greet the man. “We’re not open yet, you’ll have to--”

“I’m not here to buy coffee,” said the man, flashing him a smile. “My name’s Gawain, I work over at the coffee shop on University Boulevard.”

Hengist mulled this over. The existence of other coffeeshops was something of a sore point for him, and the broken coffee machine had already defined the gloomy character of his morning. “Ah.”

“Anyway, I know we’re competitors, but I was wondering if you could help us out.” Gawain crossed his arms and kept his affable, open smile fixed to his face. “We’ve been having some machinery trouble.”

Concerned about the impression he might give to the workers, Hengist beckoned him over to the side of the room. “I don’t want to be rude,” he said, rudely, “but we can’t exactly license our contractors out to the competitor. Nice chat, though. Come by if you ever want decent coffee.”

“I will, I will,” said Gawain, and made no move to leave. “Our coffee is terrible, you’ll drive us out of business in no time. Not my problem, of course. But that’s not what I was asking.”

“Oh?”

“I was actually wondering if we could buy a coffee machine off of you,” said Gawain, rubbing his hands together.

To Hengist, who was short a considerable amount of money from his cursed parking ticket, and was also absolutely confident in his ability to obfuscate the location of one broken coffee machine on his monthly reports, this was a glittering lure. “Interesting,” he said, and drifted over to the broken machine. There was something wrong with the blades, he didn’t understand it. It could probably be fixed easily, but— well, if corporate thought it was broken, then they would ship him a new one under warranty. No harm, no foul. “Does it need to be in pristine condition?”

“I’ll be honest,” grimaced Gawain, scratching the back of his neck, “we’re in dire straits. I doubt we’re going to last out the month, really. We’ll take whatever we can get.”

Hengist frowned. Something tickled him as wrong. “You don’t seem particularly aggrieved by your employment difficulties.”

“It’s not my shop.”

“It’s your job.”

They spent an awkward several seconds scrutinizing each other’s faces when the door swung open once more and Kay charged in. “Gawain,” he snapped. “What’s taking so long? I give you _one_ task— I would have thought it was easier than preparing a decent cup of coffee, which you can’t seem to do. Is this the manager, then?”

“Yes,” said Gawain, with barely-concealed awe at a new and unexpected side of Kay. “Sorry, sorry, I was trying my best. I’m sorry, Mr. Kay.”

Kay gave him a look which very much indicated that he would regret that particular piece of over-dramatized formality. “You’re a failure,” he said, and turned to Hengist. “I’m sorry about him. I thought this would be something he could finally do right. Just can’t hire good baristas these days, can you?”

“I guess not,” said Hengist, nervously. He would not have been described as a charitable boss, but all of the young man’s nonchalance at the prospect of losing his job was suddenly making sense, and somewhere deep in his heart a spark of pity stirred. “You’re the manager, I presume?”

“Kay Pendragon,” said Kay, sticking out his hand and then retracting it before Hengist had a chance to take it. “Well? Will you sell us a machine?”

“I have one that’s got some damage on the blades, but it should be mostly good to go,” said Hengist. The world was looking up, suddenly: he was recouping the losses from his parking ticket, and the manager of the only rival coffeeshop in the nearby vicinity was a raving lunatic with no customer service skills and a menacing overcoat. The barista— Gawain, he remembered— mouthed a thank you at him.

“Fine, fine,” said Kay brusquely. “We’ll take it. How much?”

“One grand?” Hengist offered, with less confidence than he normally would have. Something about the sharp-faced young man with the red hair intimidated him deeply.

“Nonsense.” Kay snapped his fingers at Gawain, who immediately put on a decent show of rifling frantically in his pockets for the money. “We’ll give you five hundred. Take it or leave it.”

“Eight hundred?”

Kay thought about this. “No,” he said. “Also, that hallway in the back isn’t up to building standards. Five hundred. Well? What’s it to be?”

It was better than nothing, and Hengist was increasingly of the desire to get Kay Pendragon out of his shop as fast as he could. “Fine,” he said, and accepted the wad of cash handed to him by the nervous barista.

“Have a nice day,” said Gawain, before Kay grabbed him by the arm and dragged him out of Saxons’ Cafe as a bemused and deeply menaced Hengist watched them leave.

“Well,” said Kay from the safety of the car, stretching his back like a runner, “that was moderately successful, don’t you think?”

Meanwhile, in the coffeeshop, everybody was tending to their usual tasks, trying to fight off the worry that came with leaving to Gawain an important task. At some point the members of world-famous folk rock band Play Not had wandered in for their morning coffee and vague belligerence, and were currently occupying a table by the counter. Next to them, Galahad was looking absorbedly at his laptop, an action that was interpreted as studying by everyone except Mordred, who crept up behind him to find out that he was actually looking at his curated folder of Saint Sebastian paintings while sipping his dreadful agave concoction.

“It’s for my theology class!” Galahad made a feeble attempt to defend himself. It’s safe to say that Mordred did not buy it.

Agravain was cleaning the counter for the third time when Gaheris showed him something on his phone, causing him to throw a shoe at Tristan and missing miserably.

“Ah, I see that Tristan’s feetposting has a new victim?” Iseult said, smirking.

“You could say so,” replied Gaheris in between giggles. Agravain refused to comment. Tristan only grinned from where he was playing bread soccer with Dinadan.

Priamus chuckled from the corner where, still dressed as a cop, he was toying with his handcuffs with a familiarity and expertise that suggested more than a little practice, a thought that seemed to haunt everyone except forTristan, who appeared more intrigued than horrified.

Before the situation could degenerate even more, Gawain and Kay barged in, smiling and holding the coffee machine.

“Well, what do you say to the greatest fucking conmen in this shithole?” Greeted Gawain.

“Language, asshole,” Kay reprieved him. Bedivere smiled fondly at him from where he was clearing space for the new machine.

Kay smiled back. “Glad to see that at least someone made himself useful while we were doing the heavy lifting.”

“Hey!” protested Agravain, who was still holding the cleaning rag.

“You are only wearing one shoe,” Kay cut him off.

“You guys made it!” exclaimed Gareth, coming out of the kitchen with a tray of freshly baked pastries. “Snack?” He offered. Everybody served themselves.

“Gareth, credit where credit’s due, you’re a criminal mastermind! Your plan worked wonders,” said Gawain, eliciting shocked stares in Gareth’s direction from the rest of the coffeeshop. Gareth smiled sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. “Yeah, it’s Gareth’s plan, I thought I told you.”

“No, you didn’t. What the fuck? Gareth, your status as a fake Orkney is revoked,” said Kay, surprised. Gareth kept smiling.

“In this case, everyone say thank you Gareth, I guess…”

“Thank you Gareth,” echoed everyone, mouths full of the results of Gareth’s stress-baking endeavours.

“I think this calls for a celebration,” said Gawain.

Tristan and Iseult quickly exchanged a look, before screaming ”PARTY TIME!” in the same moment Gawain did. Understandably, he didn’t look too pleased at the idea of having had the same thought as the members of world-famous folk rock band “Play Not”.

After some convincing, everybody agreed that a party was not that bad an idea, and arrangements were being made. Gareth and Percival were put in charge of snacks, which really meant ordering copious amounts of pizza, buying enough chips to feed an army and very little actual cooking. Gawain and Priamus were put in charge of invitations, which was in itself a terrible idea, given that five minutes in they were already doing something that was quite clearly _not_ invitations. Everybody else busied themselves with moving the tables, setting up lights and preparing the speaker system. Tristan was seen looking at sheet music titled “Tristan and Isolt(‘s feet), a cover by Play Not”. Lancelot came in early to help, and pointedly avoided looking at Priamus and Gawain.

Dinadan was put in charge of music, or, to be more correct, Dinadan put himself in charge of music and was willing to beat off anyone else who wanted an opinion on it, with a large stick of some sort if necessary. Though Gareth and Lancelot had both gotten good results from asking nicely, Tristan was no longer allowed within several feet of the speaker system his own band had provided.

By 10 p.m. every inch of the coffee shop and its surrounding area was illuminated, by fixtures both permanent and makeshift, and crowded with employees, favourite customers, not so favourite customers, and random college students drawn like moths to a flame to any promise of loud noises and free alcohol.

And there was, it must be said, a prodigious amount of alcohol. It had arrived in the hands of every attendee the way alcohol at parties often did, which was to say mysteriously and inexorably.

Gareth and Lynette were remarkable only for being the sole people both enjoying themselves and not yet or planning to be wasted, nursing drinks and making gentle verbal sport of their fellow party goers from a table in the corner. Also at the table, but in somewhat lower spirits, were Gaheris and Agravaine, the latter of whom was staring in frustration down at a full cup of something he had no desire to be holding.

He was distracted from his unhappy contemplation of the drink by a figure in the crowd, brushing neatly past Isolde 2 and Elaine, who were dancing together. The newcomer gave a sardonic salute to the corner table and went to get a beer.

“What the fuck is he doing here?” Agravaine demanded of his family.

“We invited him because he gave us five thousand dollars, Aggs,” Gareth explained, not unkindly.

“Yeah, and you should act real grateful,” Lynette added, unkindly. “Not Gawain grateful, because the FDA, but grateful.”

Agravaine’s face became an unhealthy colour and he took an instinctual drink from the cup. This was a decision he instantaneously repented, coughing and scowling through his now thoroughly pink complexion.

As a rule, he didn’t drink, partly because he thought it made him look responsible, which wasn’t the image he wanted but was at least _an_ image. Mainly, though, he knew drunk people tended to humiliate themselves in startling and creative ways. Gawain never did, but that sort of experience seemed exactly the sort of thing that would happen to _him_ , Agravaine. So, preemptively, he remained sober.

Which he was rethinking rather quickly because Lamorak, he noted, was drinking, and maybe it was lame that he wasn't, immature even— he was an adult, he could even drink legally. He took another, much smaller sip, and did not find the experience any more enjoyable than the first had been. Gaheris was still looking out onto the crowd, and Agravaine took advantage of his distraction to pour most of the contents of his own cup into his brothers, vowing to work on the alcohol thing at a later date.

“You two are awfully dull,” Lynette accused, upon realizing that no further developments of interest would spring from the presence of Lamorak. Gaheris and Agravaine found themselves promptly abandoned as Gareth and his girlfriend got up to make a round about the room insearch of more engaging company.

They found it, quite unexpectedly, gathered around a game of strip chess on what was usually the counter and was now a high table. The pair joined the crowd of one, bumping it up to three, as the game continued.

Galahad stared at the board, his eyes narrowed and piercing. “Bishop to E5.”

“Oof,” said Priamus, and blew out through his nose. He stared at the board. To the onlookers- Perceval, Lynette, and Gareth- nothing appeared to be happening. Occasionally one of the two would say numbers and letters which clearly meant something to them; they would then move pieces on the board which presumably might have been related to the verbal instructions. Once in a while one of the little pieces got removed and banished to the Cup of Shame, where bad pawns went to die.

Steepling his hands behind his head, Galahad leaned back in his chair. He was, it had to be mentioned, slightly less clothed than normal. This was not saying much: he still had on an undershirt, a turtleneck, and a blazer. His scarf had been forfeited to the deep recesses under the tables, and he had lost his watch.

Priamus was nearly naked. This was not in any respect a reflection of the current state of the chess match. As a habit, he simply wore fewer clothes. “Alright,” he said finally, floating his fingers about a rook. “Rook to… C4. Can I interest you in a drink, Galahad? It is a party, after all.”

“No, you won’t trap me,” said Galahad brusquely, and raised an eyebrow at the board. “Well, darn. That was a good move. Eh…” He shifted uncomfortably. “Fine. Knight to D4.”

Smirking, Priamus banished his victim knight to the Cup of Shame, and then, crossing his arms, nodded. Reluctantly, Galahad slid out of his blazer and laid it across the back of the chair. “Is it just me or is it cold in here?” he said, shivering.

“It’s like 35 degrees,” Priamus pointed out, although because Galahad had long expatriated himself of his knowledge of Celsius, this did not have the mocking effect he intended. At any rate, despite wearing only briefs and a muscle tank, Priamus felt far more at ease.

“Can I get _you_ a drink?” Galahad wheedled. “Just one?”

“I’m not a newb,” said Priamus, scoffing. “Come on, Galahad. Put your money

where your mouth is and make a move.”

The fight raged on. This table sized drama was matched half a room away by another larger scale engagement.

“I can’t fucking believe you!” Pelleas was saying. Gawain was looking up at him from the couch with a languorous half-smirk, charmingly dishevelled in a way that was at least somewhat intentional. Ettarde, who had until two seconds ago been engaged in making out with him, looked mildly irritated.

“What the hell is your problem?” the beleaguered party continued, gesturing from Gawain to Ettarde, who rolled her eyes and rose from the sofa.

Something shifted in Gawain’s face, and his eyes narrowed. “You’re right, I’ve done you a great insult,” he noted, almost academically, “let me make it up to you.”

He was speaking low and soft, and the music and conversation was loud, and Pelleas found himself leaning in closer to hear. Close enough to see the flashing mischief in Gawain's eyes and how Ettarde’s lipstick had stained his lips a patchy, smeared crimson.

While that situation was developing, Agravaine was dealing with another situation of equal mortification a scant few yards away— though in party space that may as well have been a football field.

One drink poured into Gaheris’ cup had become two, then three, then the tally just kept going up. If he noticed this Gaheris seemed to consider it more a convenient alcohol refill service than an annoyance. He’d been drinking plenty for both of them for the duration, and was now digressing in a manner both loud and, to his brother at least, humiliating, on any subject and to any person who would listen.

“So it’s about the— it’s about the antiparticles, right? It's about the fucking, the fucking antiparticles— You’re like, there are so many fucking particles, and then you add in wave-particle duality and that's already too much. That's too much, Agravaine!” He pointed dramatically in the vague direction of his brother. “But then they tell you— get this— they tell you there are fucking antiparticles too. Who the fuck let there be antiparticles?”

“Wow, your brother is fucking trashed,” Lamorak noted.

“I noticed,” Agravaine said, trying to grab his brother’s arm and lead him into the backroom for a glass of water or something. Displaying shocking spryness, Gaheris dodged him, barely spilling the drink that had been surreptitiously poured for him. He continued noisily explaining quantum physics, which no one had any idea where he had learned or why, considering he was a communications major.

“...and that’s not the end of it! That’s not the end of it because there are even _more_ types of particles hiding inside other particles, like, like those creepy Russian puppets.” Gaheris paused a moment, took a drink, dodged again, continued. “And that’s how quarks fuck you in the ass every time. Every single fucking time you’ve got a fucking quark where there shouldn't be a quark, unquantized charges...”

“Do you want some help with him?” Lamorak offered, seemingly more out of boredom than any particular philanthropic feeling.

“Fuck off.”

Back on the couch, a challenge of sorts was being issued.

“I’ve kissed her twice and you none, so how about we even the score?” Delivering that statement, Gawain stared up through his thick brown hair with a look of daring at Pelleas, who was discovering previously unknown aspects of himself at an intoxicating pace.

“Fine,” Pelleas said, no sooner done than he found himself taking the place until very recently occupied by the object of his obsession, and found himself, moreover, not nearly as morose over her rejection as he had been moments before.

It is said that one has to practice for ten thousand hours to become a master in any field, and Gawain had certainly put in his time. If Pelleas was making his enjoyment of those skills very publically evident, which he was, he was quite happily complacent in his own humiliation. In fact Pelleas, for whom a world outside Gawain had ceased to exist, didn’t even notice that Ettarde was standing only a few feet away with her phone out, recording the whole thing.

“Oh god, look at our brother,” Gaheris was saying, struggling to speak through his own laughter. Agravaine was desperately regretting pouring all of his drinks into his brother’s cup. Not regretting it as much as he was about to be, though.

“You’d ne’er do that,” he said to Agravaine, though whether this was in praise or admonishment wasn’t clear.

“Uh, no,” Agravaine agreed, scanning the room without avail for Mordred, to help him drag their completely wasted sibling out of the building.

“In fact,” Gaheris went on, growing louder and waving one arm as if to make an announcement. He was loud enough that the attention in the room was now split between the couch and him, with Lancelot awkwardly in the middle looking back and forth for someone to stop— well, everything that was happening.

“Did you know, about Agravaine,” Gaheris almost fell, clumsily steadied himself against the wall and, despite the panicked chagrin of the subject, continued, “Agravaine has never been on a date in ’is ’ole life! And ’e’s never kissed anyone, I dinna think!”

Agravaine’s previous mission— to grab his brother and drag him bodily from the room— was overridden by the desire to turn into a cockroach and be stomped to death beneath the countless clumsy feet of the people who were now turning to stare at him. That being impossible, he set his sights on leaving as quickly as he could and never returning, ignoring the voices of any number of well-meaning people suggesting the contrary.

While the ever-unfortunate Agravaine was making a harried and perhaps slightly teary egress via the back door, Lancelot was watching the unfolding tableau on the couch. He was frozen with the horrified fascination which sometimes grips onlookers to car accidents, avalanches and tone-deaf drunken karaoke performances.

Ettarde was still filming, Pelleas was still making an absolute fool of himself, and everyone was still watching. Then Gawain seemed to judge the debt paid and abruptly broke away with a slight shove, the recipient of which was too drunk— on a wicked cocktail of emotions and sensations and Gawain, more than on the cheap alcohol— to do anything but fall back breathless, sweaty, flushed, and with the expression of one quite recently concussed.

Gawain, for his part, looked bored. But, scanning the crowd lazily for some new entertainment, the dazed Pelleas long-forgotten, he saw Ettarde with her phone and winked. Sitting on the couch like a king on his throne, his eyes fixed on the camera, he smiled sharply, his teeth bared and his eyes glinting with bitter satisfaction. He had a nice smile, Lancelot had always thought.

He was rapidly reconsidering that sentiment in face of the sheer malevolence in Gawain’s expression. And remembering a long-gone conversation.

They hadn’t known each other for long when the now locally-infamous Ettarde Incident had gone down, but between commiseration over shared dismal test performances in MAT136 Calculus I, he had gotten the whole story from its protagonist.

“I suppose Pelleas sort of looks like he might be handsome if you're into guys, but probably isn’t,” Gawain had explained confidentially, tapping his pen against the plastic table. “That sounds mean, I'm sorry.”

“No, no, not if it’s true,” Lancelot said, not caring suddenly what was mean or not because Gawain was speaking to him, which was a state he did not desire an end to.

Receiving this blank check to be cruel, Gawain quickly cashed it. “So I guessed Ettarde wasn’t into him, he just has this rat look, and he’s like such a pathetic incel type, you know?”

Lancelot nodded enthusiastically, despite having never met Pelleas, realized that he was perhaps being too enthusiastic, and froze abruptly in place in an attempt at overcompensated demureness.

Gawain gracefully pretended not to notice, and continued. “I considered flirting with him to spare her, but you know, definitely not worth it. I could do it if I put my mind to it, of course, but God, why would I want to? So I just wrote my number on her cup instead of his.”

Then he had leaned over the table and made some positive comment about a doodle on his classmate’s notes, and in the resulting exuberant joy poorly-concealed, the topic was forgotten.

But recalling it now, Lancelot was uncomfortably confused as to why Gawain had proposed to make things right in such a way if his opinion of Pelleas was so low. Why he was so pleased to see that it was being recorded, and why he had so clearly and intentionally brought Pelleas to his current state of delirious concupiscence, despite being unattracted to him.

And then he hit upon what had struck him, initially, as wrong about the scene, more than jealousy or secondhand embarrassment. Gawain had his eyes open.

Discomfited by this realization in a way he could not put words to, Lancelot left without a goodbye, passing Mordred playing on his phone outside.

“Are my brothers making fools of themselves?” he asked, looking up from Candy Crush™ to regard Lancelot questioningly from his seat on the sidewalk.

“Uh— A bit,” Lancelot answered, and walked off quickly to prevent further questioning. It was a nice night, and the thrill of victory was still thrumming through the street, but none of it touched him. Lancelot walked home, deep in thought over Gawain, and the party, and kisses, and uncomfortable realizations.

Agravaine saw the contemplative figure of Lancelot pass under the window of the large apartment the brothers shared, but did not even consider calling out. He turned quickly and sunk to the floor, back pressed against the wall. His room did not have a window, being an overgrown storage closet. The room he was in was Gawain’s, and he had been occupied therein with looking for things to break.

So far he had found three separate stashes of snacks, too many knives, a drawer he never wanted to think about again, and had broken a lamp, but none of it was nearly as cathartic as he had hoped. Which is why he was sitting on the floor, torn between wondering where his younger brothers were and praying they stayed out all night.

From his slumped position half sprawled on the laminate floor, he noticed the box tucked neatly in the space both under the bed and concealed by the dresser. Agravaine pulled it out from its snug hiding place, having no idea what it might possibly contain and knowing this was precisely why he had unearthed it. Despite being hard to access, it wasn't dusty.

He was half expecting something horrific, like a human skull or a second pair of handcuffs, and was almost disappointed to find it filled with paper. But Gawain had gone to enough trouble to conceal it that it had to be worth further investigation, so Agravaine recklessly dumped the whole thing out on the floor— it was only shoebox sized, though somewhat sturdier.

“Huh,” he said after a lengthy second. Whatever he was expecting this was not it, by virtue of being far more ostensibly normal than anything his brother should by all rights be even distantly involved in.

They were pictures, mostly, but also a few ticket stubs, every paper item he had seemingly ever received from his brothers, and, at the bottom of the pile, a yellow legal pad. Every year from kindergarten to senior year of high school Gawain received piles of cards on Valentines’ Day, and every year he threw them all away, but not one half-assed hand-drawn birthday card his brothers had ever made had escaped being carefully saved. Looking at the pictures, Agravaine recognized several that could only have been taken out of frames sometime in the chaos of the night they left their mother's house.

Agravaine was so thrown by this collection that he spent several minutes numbly examining the pictures one by one, neglecting the legal pad. Finally, though, he picked it up, and flipped back a few empty, crinkled pages before coming to the first marked one, which was dated at the top. Not very neatly, he noted peevishly, before taking a second look at the date.

Oh. No wonder the handwriting was bad, Gawain would have been eight. Which made the contents of the paper even more baffling, as they appeared to be detailed, if roughly-scrawled, financial records. Amounts entered between a few dollars and, as the pages went on and the writing became more competent, hundreds.

The source was recorded as well, scraps of pocket money that could be ticked away without the notice of a deficit, then odd after-school jobs Agravaine had never known his brother to have, and the profits from selling off most of his belongings and a great deal that wasn't his belongings, until the accounts abruptly stopped on April 30th ten years after they had begun.

With a start, Agravaine realized that he didn't have to wonder where the money had gone. It was all around him.

Five years ago, the very day Gawain turned eighteen, he had told his brothers he was leaving and there would be a place for them with him if they wanted it. They all accepted his offer, to his obvious relief, none of them wondering how it was possible. If asked they would probably have theorised wealthy relatives had taken pity. But they didn't ask. Of course Gawain had the money, of course he could get anything done he put his mind to, that was how he was. He didn’t even need to try.

Yet here was ten years worth of evidence to the contrary. Agravaine leafed back and forth through the pages, so densely packed with numbers that in places they were barely readable, generously pockmarked with scratched out mistakes, especially near the beginning— Gawain was awful with numbers.

Agravaine would have sat there until dawn if not for the sudden buzz of his phone from the pocket of his jeans. He shuffled the contents of the box together and roughly replaced it, stood and hurried out of his brother's room and to his own, propping a chair under the handle; there was no lock.

The phone was set so that only messages from his siblings sent notifications, but Agravaine was slightly started to see how many missed messages had accumulated in the past half hour. He ignored them but checked the one from Gareth that had caused the phone to buzz. It read:

GARETH: _hey aggs. sorry about gaheris. if u havent seen the video yet… just dont watch it, itll blow over_

What video?

Pandora's Box, Bluebeard, Plato's Allegory of the Cave.

He gave in and checked social media. It wasn't hard to guess which video Gareth was warning him about. There was only one plastered over every timeline. Someone had recorded the entire Pelleas incident. With sound. Sound that included Gaheris, drunkenly announcing— Agravaine dropped his phone as if it had suddenly become red hot, and sat down heavily on the neatly made bed.

Distantly, he wondered why he wasn't crying. He felt feverish and exhausted and considered trying to sleep, but stopped, recalling that he had a shift tomorrow morning. That he would have to go back, with all of them staring and laughing. The frozen dread kept him wide awake, knowing sleep would only make the travail come sooner.

The phone rang— Gareth. He declined. Moments or perhaps hours later it rang again.

“Why the fuck—?” he rushed to hit decline and, in his haste and slight shaking of his hands, accepted instead.

“What the hell do you want, Lamorak?” Agravaine demanded, voice perhaps not as steady as he would like but, all things considered, not as bad as it could have been. Some small consolation.

“Oh, what do you fucking think? I'm selling aluminum siding at one am. Seriously, are you alright?”

“Peachy.”

“You just seemed upset. It was shitty of Gaheris to lie like that.”

There was a long and viscerally painful pause.

“Ah,” Lamorak said finally, comprehension dawning.

Agravaine was looking up the price of plane tickets to very far away and daydreaming about being magically transformed into a packing peanut. Or a regular peanut, or a packing, whatever that might be, as long as it was an only child.

“Well, anyway,” Lamorak started, attempting a recovery, “It sucked, so I thought I'd call.”

 _And now you have, so fuck off,_ Agravaine intended to say. What came out, inexplicably, was:

“...Thanks.”

“Anytime. Really, anytime.”

“Well, ideally never again,” Agravaine said, slightly misunderstanding. There was a second uncomfortable silence.

“I guess I'll go then, if you're sure you're alright.”

“I'll live.” God knew his brothers would and had plunged him to deeper depths of despair than this.

“Thank you.” Agravaine repeated, sensing Lamorak was about to hang up.

“Anytime,” he echoed, something not so cavelier as usual in his voice. Then he hung up.

There was a strange ringing in his ears. Overcome with a sudden panic, he checked his watch: just past midnight. It wasn’t even that late, but he felt as though he had been up for days. His bed was made, the floor was clean, there was nothing on the walls; there was never anything on the walls. Nothing to clean. Nothing to do but sleep or stare at his phone and replay that godawful video.

Still wearing his AJJ shirt, binder, jeans, and sneakers, he flung himself backwards onto the bed and stared at the ceiling, his eyes wide. _Aggravaine’s never even kissed anyone_ , Gaheris recited at him through the buzzing in his head. _Aggravaine’s never even been on a date._

The ceiling fan made its inexorable orbit in a circle over his head. He felt his eyes follow it, drifting round and round and _round and—_

_—never even kissed anyone—_

Aggravaine slept.

As Lancelot hurried through the streets back to the apartment he shared with his mother, the sky crackled overhead. It wasn’t rain, not really, just the dry sort of thunder you got sometimes when another part of town was under a downpour. He pulled his jacket closer around himself and walked on. When he turned the corner from the main boulevard, the streetlamp above him flickered. All of a sudden he was overwhelmed with the ridiculous urge to cry. It would be useless, of course. There was nothing worth crying over, especially not his feelings. And it wasn’t as though he wasn’t accustomed— hadn’t been accustomed for quite a while now— to the knowledge that he and Gawain moved in different worlds.

It was, in many respects, a miracle that they were friends at all. Nothing much went on in Lancelot’s life. That was why he spent so much time at a cafe that sold mediocre hot chocolate and violated every single FDA regulation in the book. That was why he tagged along on madcap adventures and ignored his common sense. If there was one thing he knew, it was that Gawain was exciting.

He passed another streetlamp. One solitary bug orbited it skittishly, bumping over and over against the glass. Lancelot was an art student, all things considered. He looked for the beautiful and the picturesque in life, and when he could find none he made it himself out of half-cocked smiles and charm confused for goodness. Never before had there been such an opportunity for him to meet his Galatea; with the heat of the oven turned up he found the statue was hollow and cracked. There was no point in hating Gawain for this, he reasoned. He had Galatea’s marble face, but whatever it was that lurked behind did not act altruistically.

Inexorably, he found his thoughts drawn back to the look on Gawain’s face when he had discarded Pelleas like he seemed to discard everyone who was no longer useful to him: victorious and mocking. In the dry cold of the night, Lancelot shook himself. He had wanted very much to kiss Gawain on many occasions. Why on earth had he wanted that? Everyone who did seemed to regret it.

He turned the last corner before his flat, his shadow pooling in the weak light. So that was it, then. Years of vague friendship and useless idol-worship, followed by a brief bout of adventure and the hollow cardboard of disappointment. Whatever games Gawain was playing, he decided, fishing in his pocket for his key, he did not want to leave himself an open pawn.

When he swung the front door open, his mother was still up, sitting at the kitchen table with a book. Something on flowers, probably. Or maybe one of the true crime polemics on which Morgan had gotten her hooked. She looked up when he entered, and he realised he had not looked her in the eyes for quite some time. Her face crinkled in a tired smile. “Hey, Lance,” she said, laying the book aside. True crime, after all. “Was the party good?”

He slid into the chair beside her, his legs groaning in protest from the exertions of the last few days. “It wasn’t what I thought it would be,” he said. “But I’m home now.”

FIN

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO this is the last chapter but there is gonna be a sequel never fear, as well as a bunch more side stories. coffeeshop is immortal and unkillable and so sexy god bless


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